Chapter Text
We didn’t get to sit that way, him wrapped around me, literally and figuratively holding me together, as long as I would have liked. After only a couple minutes I felt him reach over to the nightstand and out of the corner of the eye that wasn’t obscured by having my face pressed against the skin of his neck and shoulder, I saw him turn the alarm clock toward us so he could read the display. He sighed and pressed the button to turn the music completely off. He pressed his lips into my hair one more time then held onto my shoulders so he could pull me away enough to look down into my face. “You feel like going down for breakfast with the gang?” He rubbed his thumbs over my shoulders, “I can make up an excuse for you if not. I’ll say I’m being selfish and want to keep you all to myself. We can go out somewhere before I take you to the airport.” He was sort of joking, but his face was so sincere it almost made my heart hurt.
“No,” I shook my head and gave him the best smile I could manage, “that sounds nice, breakfast with the family. I should see them, want to see them, before I go.”
He nodded and the look of concern didn’t quite leave his face. “Okay, well, whenever you’re ready, we can go down.” I nodded and started to shift, turning to pull my legs off him and back to my own side of the bed so I could crawl out of it, but he stopped me with a hand on the outside of my knee. “Hey,” his eyes shone when I looked into them and my heart beat a little faster in the second-long gap between his words, “I love you.”
I realized for the first time that he was scared too. The possibility hadn't even occurred to me before then, and it made me feel selfish. I didn't know exactly what he was scared of, maybe that I was going to push him away, that I was holding onto other big things that I wasn't telling him, maybe even of his own feelings about the situation. But there was no question that what I saw in his eyes was, unmistakably, fear. I changed direction and instead of continuing to move away, I turned back toward him. I rested my hands on his shoulders to steady myself as I shifted then came up onto my knees and pulled one leg across his so I was straddling his lap, sitting back midway down his thighs. “I love you too,” I told him as I settled there, then wrapped my arms around his neck to lean in and press my lips against his, our first real kiss of the morning. His chest rose with the deep breath he pulled in as he sat up a little straighter, meeting my kiss more fully and bringing our chests together with his arms around my back, holding me tight against him.
He took control, kissing me again and again, quick little pecks alternating with longer, lingering kisses, all of them soft and gentle and sweet. And I’ll be damned if my eyes didn’t fill, yet again, with tears. It was a mix of a million things, but the main, overwhelming one was relief - relief at believing, finally, that he really wasn’t going anywhere, not because of what I’d told him, anyway, and not any time soon. I knew the exact moment he felt the tears on his own skin, because his left arm tightened around my lower back, drawing me in tighter against him, and his right hand came up to curl around the back of my neck and hold me in place. He kissed me a few more times, the last one a bit longer and a bit firmer than all the others, and when he pulled away, he kept his hand on my neck, holding me steady, and nudged my nose with his to turn my head to the side. He nearly whispered, his lips moving across my cheek, “I got you, sweet girl. We’re a team, your stuff is our stuff. Don’t forget that.”
I nodded when he turned so that we were cheek-to-cheek, and when I went still he kissed my temple, right in front of my hair, then pulled back to look me in the eye. He was waiting for me to actually tell him that I’d heard him, that it had sunk in. "I'll try not to. Thank you."
"Always, baby girl." He winked then smiled at me as he pulled the bottom of my top up to pat the moisture from my face. He covered my nose with it for a second like he wanted me to blow into it and I rolled my eyes at him. He grinned a little bigger. “No? Okay then,” he lowered the shirt back to my waist and smoothed the fabric over my hips.
I wanted to change, maybe even shower, before we went down for breakfast, but Chris insisted I shouldn’t, that everyone else would be in their pajamas still, and that his mom would be thrilled that I was so comfortable, so at home in her house, that I would do the same. So I settled for combing my fingers through my hair and tying it back into a quick braid while he threw on the t-shirt he’d worn the day before. He also grabbed the thick, fuzzy socks that had come with his red and green flannel pj pants, finding my reindeer ones at the foot of the bed and balling them up to throw at me one-by-one. He stuck his tongue out at me when I just batted them out of the air before picking them up and pulling them onto my feet.
As soon as we opened the guest room door we were hit by the smell of coffee and bacon. It was strong enough that I knew both had been going for a while, and I hoped we hadn’t kept Mrs. Evans waiting. She was at the stove with her back to us when we got to the kitchen, but she heard us come in, even with our padded, socked feet. "Good morning, kids!” she chirped, pulling a couple pieces of toast from the toaster to add to the stack she already had before turning to us. “I'm making-” she stopped and drew in a quick breath when she looked at me, “-oh, are you okay, sweetheart? You look … is everything okay?" She took a small step toward us but left her hand on the counter at her side, and even though she was speaking to me, her eyes were on Chris, her brow furrowed with worry.
I regretted letting him talk me out of that shower. Maybe it would have washed away, or at least diminished, the evidence of the many, many tears I’d cried that morning. I was sure I was a puffy, splotchy mess. "Yeah, I'm fine.” I gave her a little smile and a shrug as if to say it was no big deal. “I just woke up with a migraine. It happens sometimes." I hated to lie to her, but I wasn’t about to tell her the full truth right then. And besides, it was partially true; I did sometimes wake up with migraines, and they did often make me look almost as bad as I imagined I must have looked then.
Some of the tension left her body, her shoulders relaxing, and she took another step toward us, palms up to me. Her face still showed concern, though. "Oh no, what can I do? Do you have food triggers? Tell me what I can fix you that will make it better, or at least not worse. I've made some coffee, I know sometimes caffeine helps. But I can make you some tea if that's better?"
I let her capture my hands in hers and once she had I squeezed. "It’s okay, really, I feel much better now. This guy takes good care of me." I looked up at Chris, standing just over my shoulder, one hand on the small of my back and the other tucked into his pants pocket.
"Yeah?" she asked, and her eyes darted from mine to his, where they stayed.
"Yeah. Definitely.” I gave her hands one more quick squeeze then dropped them and took a step back into Chris’s hand. “And coffee sounds wonderful."
He pressed against my back, trying to direct me toward the chair he’d just pulled out from the table with the hand that had been in his pocket. "I'll get it. Have a seat."
"Chris-"
"I got it.” He spun the chair a little then stepped behind me and gripped my shoulders from behind, steering me toward the chair then pushing me, gently, but with no question as to his intent, down. “Sit.” I tried to look annoyed when I tilted my head back to look up at him, but his smirk, and the kiss he bent to drop onto my forehead, told me I probably wasn’t doing a very good job. He went to the counter, where he grabbed a mug from an upper cabinet and started to pour me a cup of the coffee we’d smelled when we came out of the bedroom.
His mom went to his side, looked over her shoulder at me with a small smile, then turned back to him and asked, "Did you do this?" I could tell she thought she was speaking quietly enough that I wouldn’t hear her, because her voice had dropped into a lower register and she was careful to keep her back to me.
"The coffee?” He teased, “No, you did, crazy." He bumped her with his hip before walking around her to the fridge for the cream he knew I’d want. She followed him.
"Christopher."
He sighed. "Mother."
"Tell me you didn't fuck something up."
He finished pouring the cream into my coffee before he answered, setting it down a little too hard on the counter and turning to look over at me where I picked at invisible lint on my pants. I wouldn’t have listened, if I’d had any other option short of leaving the room. I knew he knew I could hear them, though, because he gave me an apologetic almost-smile before turning back to his mom and resting a hand on her shoulder to make up for the annoyance he’d displayed before. "No mom, I didn’t fuck anything up. I promise. She woke up not feeling well."
“But she’s feeling better now?”
“She says she is.” He turned to put the cream back in the fridge.
"Do you believe her?"
He froze for a second in front of the open fridge, his hand still on the door handle. Finally he nodded just twice. "Yeah, mostly.” He closed the door and turned to lean his hip against the counter and look down at his mom, my coffee cradled in both hands. “She likes to act like she's doing better than she is, sometimes, because she doesn't like to let people help her, doesn't want to be a burden." I couldn't see her face, but the way Chris tilted his head and held one hand, palm out, up to her told me she had a less-than-great reaction to that. "I’m working on it."
She reached for him and closed a hand around one of his wrists. "Keep working."
"Yes ma'am." He leaned down to kiss the top of her head then came to stand behind me, first setting the coffee in front of me, then grabbing the back of the chair to push me up to the table, and finally leaning down to kiss my cheek.
Chris also insisted on fixing my plate for me. I didn’t love being treated like I was sick or injured when I wasn’t, but I did love giving in to his attention and letting him take care of me completely, something I didn’t normally allow myself to do. He was halfway through putting way too much food on my plate when all three kids came barreling into the kitchen. The boys ran for their grandmother - and the food - but his niece came straight to me, wrapping her arms around my waist when I pushed my chair back from the table and opened my arms. “Hey you! Good morning!”
“Good morning,” she answered in her sweet, quiet little voice. It wasn’t that she couldn’t be loud - she could definitely hold her own with the rest of the Evans clan - but when it was just her and me, she was usually much quieter. “Can I sit with you?”
“Um, yeah.” I lowered my eyebrows and pursed my lips a little as if to say, duh . “Obviously.” I pushed my chair out a little more and helped her climb up into my lap. “Excuse me,” I called, loud enough to be heard over Chris’s younger nephew directing his grandmother as to what to put on his plate and arguing with his brother over the last Mickey Mouse pancake ( I don’t WANT Goofy! Grandma, he said I AM Goofy! ), “Uncle Chris, we’re gonna need to make that two plates over here.” I wrinkled my nose at his niece when she grinned up at me.
“Yes ma’am,” he called back without turning away from the counter. “Anything for my two best girls.”
A couple minutes later, during which his niece had compared the penguins on her pajamas to the reindeer on mine, pointing out all the ways our two sets were similar, both boys practically tumbled to the table, plates in hand and followed by their uncle. “Alright ladies, your feasts await,” Chris lowered the plates, one loaded with a small helping of scrambled eggs and a pancake he’d managed to turn into a reindeer with whipped cream eyes, a chocolate chip nose, and bacon antlers, and the other piled too high with eggs, toast, and far too much bacon, onto the table in front of us with a flourish and a bow at the end. (I had a sneaking suspicion that giving me way too much bacon was his way of ensuring he had access to as much as he wanted.) He disappeared for a second then came back with his own plate, looking around the table in mock confusion before finally pretending to glare at the little girl on my lap. “You stole my seat.”
She giggled up at him around a mouthful of eggs (she was saving her pancake masterpiece for last, my kinda girl). “You can’t sit on her lap.”
“Why not?”
“Because. You’re too big. You’ll crush her.”
“Rude,” he told her, sticking out his tongue before moving to stand in front of the younger of her two brothers, dragging the chair out from under the table with his foot. “Fine, I guess I’ll just sit here.” His nephew squealed and kicked at the backs of his legs, but Chris kept going, lowering himself until he was no more than an inch above the boy’s wriggling body. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he stopped and stood again, “is someone sitting here?” He only laughed as his nephew yelled at him and his mother joined us at the table, saying nothing and shaking her head at her son and grandson. “Fine, I guess I’ll take this one.” He crossed behind me toward the empty chair at my right, but before he sat down, he leaned to kiss his niece on the cheek then put his lips right next to my ear so that it looked like he was doing the same to me. Instead, he whispered, “Funny, you’ve never complained about having me on top of you.” I choked a little on the piece of toast I’d just bitten off and I felt my cheeks flare with heat. His mom looked across the table at me with concern, but I just waved her off while avoiding her eyes. Instead I glared over at Chris as he dropped into his chair and dragged mine a little closer, smirking the whole time.
Breakfast was fun, joyful, as things always were with his family. But as the meal went on, my mood dropped a little, partially because I just didn’t want to leave, but also partially because my brain went back to that place where I looked around the table and saw not only what I wouldn’t have - because really, I’d been okay with that for a long time at that point, that acceptance was part of what had led to me being the school-mom I was to so many of my adopted kids - but what I couldn’t give Chris, what he so deserved, and, based on how happy he was and what I already knew about him, what he wanted.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that he saw the shift as it was happening. He drained the juice from his glass in one long gulp and handed it to his niece, asking her to go refill it for him. Once she was off my lap and on her way to the fridge, he hooked his foot around the leg of my chair and pulled it even closer, not stopping until the wooden seats of our chairs bumped one another. He draped his arm over my shoulder and hugged me to him. “Stop that,” he murmured into my ear, looking at me seriously when I cut my eyes over to him. “I see the wheels turning. Stop. I love them. I love you. I love this. And this is enough. I promise .”
I only nodded then leaned into him when he pressed his forehead against my hair. It wasn’t the time or place to bring the issue back up, but more than that, I was focusing on letting go - letting go of the anxiety and the fear and trusting him, trusting us . I knew him well enough after a year and a half to know that he wouldn’t lie to me, and also that if things started to change on his end, he wouldn’t string me along or waste my time. Unlike me a lot of the time, he was a great communicator. So, I worked to let go. I did excuse myself soon after that, though, because time was running short until we had to leave for me to get to the airport on time and I still needed a shower. It’s not like we could make the shower a joint affair, not at his mom’s, not with her and the kids downstairs, so I encouraged Chris to stay with them until they also had to get moving to get the kids home. I gave my hugs and said my goodbyes at the breakfast table since I knew they would probably be gone by the time I made it back downstairs.
When I came back into the guest room from the bathroom, dressed in jeans and a tshirt with my favorite University of Kentucky hoodie, carrying my towel and pajamas in a bundle in my arms, Chris was sitting at the foot of the now-made bed with his own towel folded next to him, scrolling through his phone.
"I'm sorry about that," he told me when I lowered myself onto the bed next to him after dropping my laundry onto the top of my suitcase. I would let him take the towel to the laundry with his after he showered, but I’d have to pack my pajamas dirty. Unless, of course, I left them there, but I didn’t want to give them up, and as much as I already knew I wanted to spend many more Christmases with at least him, if not his whole family, I wasn’t quite ready to bank on him wanting the same. Even if I was letting go .
"About what?"
He sighed and shook his head a little. "Talking about you, in front of you. I think mom thinks she's more discreet than she is."
I grinned and bumped my shoulder against his. "Or she just wants me to know that if it comes down to it, she'll take my side over yours."
"Valid possibility," he laughed. "She's pretty set on keeping you around." The way he lowered his head and looked up at me, almost shy, through his lashes implied that he was set on the same thing. I didn't ask, because it felt like “letting go” would mean trusting him and being content to leave it at that for the time being. I really, really hoped that’s what it meant, though.
"Seriously though, it's okay. I was trying not to listen, but …" I trailed off at the end and looked at him apologetically.
He nodded. "Kitchen's not that big. "
"I mean, it's bigger than mine. " I shrugged. "But yeah, not really big enough for privacy, not at Evans volume. And it really is okay. Her concern is sweet."
He reached over to squeeze my knee then stood and headed for his own small overnight bag across the room. "She's crazy about you," he told me over his shoulder.
I couldn’t help but smile. "Me too."
“You’re crazy about you?” He laughed at his own joke as he started pulling clothes out of his bag and draping them over his shoulder. I reached for one of the decorative pillows behind me on the bed and chucked it at his back.
“Haha, smart ass. You know what I mean.”
He continued to chuckle as he tossed his bag back to the floor then turned and headed back to me. "I meant what I said down there,” he told me when he stood right in front of me, wedging himself between my knees and cupping my chin with the hand that wasn’t holding his clothes secure on his shoulder. “I know you can take care of yourself, and I know you've spent a good part of your life doing that, even before you were truly on your own. And I don't want to take that away from you. But I do want to help, when you need me to. Or want me to. I want to make sure you know that you don’t have to take care of yourself, by yourself." I didn’t miss the fact that it was his second time that morning to make some version of that promise, first to his mom, then to me.
I closed my eyes for just a second when his hand slid up onto my cheek, and I leaned into it. Even once I'd opened my eyes I stayed that way, my head tilted slightly to the side and resting in his palm. "I want you to know I'm working, too."
"I know you are." His thumb glided over my cheekbone, from the corner of my eye down toward my nose and back. "Work in progress, right? Not just you, us."
"I love you."
"So fucking much," he finished the sentiment after waiting silently while I turned to kiss first his palm then the inside of his wrist, then he slid his hand through my hair to the back of my head. He leaned down until we were forehead-to-forehead and nose-to-nose, lowering his voice to a quiet, intimate level, even though no one else was in the room, maybe even in the house, by that point. "You know we’re good, right? I’m not going anywhere unless you make me."
“Thank you." I sandwiched his cheeks between my palms and leaned in to kiss him. "That means everything." I kissed him again, holding my lips to his a little longer to seal the moment, then tried to lighten the mood a little, smirking as I pulled away. "Right now, can I make you go get a shower?” He gasped in mock offense when I moved my hands to his shoulders to push him away. He pretended to be angry, narrowing his eyes and spinning on his heel, but before he had a chance to storm away I smacked him on the ass and he turned and shot me a wink over his shoulder.
Chris had left the bedroom door open when he went to shower. When he returned, I was standing with my back to the door, my suitcase on the bed in front of me so I could check it one last time, and a little bit just so I could re-fold everything, passing the time and avoiding actually thinking about what I was doing and the fact that I was about to have to leave. I jumped a little when he first spoke, but the rich, familiar timbre of his voice calmed me almost as soon as it had startled me. “God I wish you could stay. Are you sure you have to go?”
I blew out all my breath and dropped my chin to my chest then watched him cross the room to shove his wadded up pajamas into his bag. “School starts back tomorrow.”
“They can survive without you for a day or two. Or ten.” He came to stand behind me, resting his hands on my hips and his chin on my shoulder.
I turned and pecked a quick kiss on his cheek, darting to face forward again before he had a chance to distract me. “So can you.”
“See, I’m not so sure about that one.” He slid his hands across my lower stomach until his arms wrapped around me and he leaned some of his weight against my back.
“Two weeks. That’s it.”
“Sixteen days," he pouted into my ear, counting the exact number of days until he'd be in Virginia, two days before the one-year anniversary of us crossing the line from friends to so much more; so much better. I suspected he was planning something - he'd been a little too eager to tuck me into bed the night before and go back down to have a drink with his mom, and there had been a few moments of secrecy, just looks, mostly, between them over breakfast - but I really had no idea what it might be. I tried not to think too much about it, because he’d complained before that I was too hard to surprise.
I laughed at him a little, but I actually loved it, and he knew as much. “Close enough.”
“It’s really not, though.” He sighed and collapsed a little more onto me and I just shook my head at him and turned my attention back to my suitcase. I didn't like it any more than he did, but I really did have to go, and if we didn't leave within the next 15 minutes I would start to stress about the airport and security. “Fine. Go do your job or whatever.” He spun away from me until we were side-to-side, me still facing the bed and him facing the door, and flopped onto the bed on his back, playing with the handle of the suitcase as I smoothed my winter coat, too bulky and cumbersome to travel in, over the top of everything else and zipped the bag closed.
“Mmm, so supportive.” I smirked down at him and he stuck his tongue out at me. “Well," I lifted my eyebrows and trailed my fingertips from his knee up his thigh as far as I could reach, "that’s one way to try to get me to stay.”
“Yeah?" He grinned sinfully and pushed himself up onto his elbows, "Is it working?”
I hummed, “I wish. But I still gotta go to work. Gotta teach the kiddos.”
“Fine." He dropped back again, his head bouncing a little on the mattress, "I guess I’ll share you with them." He groaned, whined almost, as he pushed himself off the bed and lifted the suitcase easily off the mattress, setting it on the floor between our feet. "But we should probably get going before I change my mind.”
I had been right about the kids and Mrs. Evans being gone by the time we made it out of the guestroom, showered, dressed, and packed. It saddened me that I wouldn’t get to see them again, but it definitely made it easier to get out the door. Chris refused to let me do anything other than carry my purse and walk to the car, and when we were in the driveway he loaded my large suitcase and my smaller carry-on into the back of the car then turned to wind his arms around my shoulders and press his lips into my hair. We both knew that standing in front of his mom’s house was our last chance for a proper goodbye; we wouldn’t take a chance on more than a quick hug at the airport. We’d been really fortunate so far to avoid media attention, aside from a few pictures of me and of us at the premiere of the movie that had brought us together and a couple at Disney World where no one seemed to recognize me as the same person. That lack of attention had allowed us to live the last year in a bubble just big enough for him, me, and our actual friends and families, a bubble that we weren’t ready to leave.
I fisted my hands around the soft fabric of his sweater at his sides, just above his hips, and though I didn’t need to, thanks to his arms pressing me tight to his chest, I pulled him against me. “Thank you.”
My temple rested on his collarbone and his chin bobbed against the top of my head as he spoke, “That’s what I’m here for.”
I closed my eyes and turned my head to press my face into his chest, breathing him in. Then I pushed up onto my toes and tilted my head back to kiss the soft skin under his chin, just where his beard ended. “I mean, for everything.”
He held me a little tighter. “I know. And it’s still what I’m here for.”